What can you do, then, when you don’t have a lot of money to spend on hotel accommodations? One option that travelers to the city have been taking advantage of for ages is a reservation at a local hostel.

Although most commonly identified with young people wandering from place to place on extended group vacations, hostels are actually for adults — and sometimes children accompanied by adult guardians — of any age.

Two excellent hostel options for the budget conscious right here in Boston are managed by the well-known non-profit organization Hostelling International (HI). Travelers can select from either the Back Bay or the Fenway location, both of which offer private rooms, in addition to the traditional shared rooms, at a higher but still bargain price.

As of this writing, members of HI who stay at the Back Bay hostel can reserve a single bed in a six-bed room for $27.99–$44.99 per night, while HI members who choose the Fenway hostel can reserve a single bed in a three-bed room for $36–$45 per night.

For those who can’t tolerate or don’t want communal sleeping arrangements, private rooms are available for HI members at a cost of $69.99–$99.99 per night at the Back Bay location and for $96–$119 per night at Fenway. Non-HI members pay just $3 more per night for both types of accommodations if they prefer not to join the organization for a very reasonable and nominal fee.

To learn more about the unique traits of HI hostels in Boston — for example, identification requirements, reservation procedures, check-in and check-out policies, limitations on visits, sharing of common areas, storage and laundry options, perks such as complimentary breakfasts included in the bed prices, and getting the most out of the travel benefits offered to guests — visit the HI Boston Hostels website.

Incidentally, on the one occasion long ago that I had to travel to Boston and secure well-priced sleeping arrangements, I used craigslist and lucked out with spectacular, cheap accommodations by subletting a room for a few weeks. It was in the two-bedroom condo of a woman I didn’t know who was never home — she had gone to work every morning when I got up and came home late each night and went straight to bed — and was about to move out after her former roommate had already left.

The arrangement didn’t bother me because Boston and surrounding areas truly comprise a college environment filled with lots of people renting and subletting housing via the craigslist website. I was traveling with someone then, however, and I also had the benefits of planning far in advance and being extremely familiar with the area beforehand.

If the absence of funds forces you to go the craigslist route, tread very, very carefully. While I’ve never heard of anything horrible happening, it never hurts to be hyper cautious and super aware. Hostels managed by Hostelling International seem like a better, safer, more reliable, and less stressful bet.

Post from: The Boston Traveler

TRAVEL SOLO, TRAVEL SMART: An Interactive Workshop for Women Traveling Alone aims to give women who enjoy roaming Earth by themselves a wealth of information to help make their trips optimal endeavors.

From security tips to advice on how to safely and efficiently plan itineraries and accommodations, the workshop led by experienced solo traveler Leah Moschella is sure to answer many of the questions that often inhibit women from sampling what the world has to offer on their own.

Although the 7pm–8:30pm event is free and open to the general public, the sponsor suggests calling ahead to make a reservation for the workshop, which will take place at the outdoor apparel store REI Boston (401 Park Drive, Boston, 617-236-0746).

Post from: The Boston Traveler

Thanks to Hostelling International, Boston will hold its first annual International Women’s Day Film Festival this year to add a three-day, cinematic flair to the usual celebration. The included films were specifically selected to not only exemplify the “extraordinary lives of women around the world” through their struggles and accomplishments, but also to encourage discussion and introspection.

The film festival opens tonight with Denmark’s Sundance World Cinema Prize-winning documentary Enemies of Happiness, which revolves around 27-year-old Malalai Joya’s campaign to gain one of 249 assembly seats in Afghanistan’s male-dominated parliament. It screens at MCLE (10 Winter Place, Boston) at 7pm, following a 6:30pm reception and preceding a discussion with Joya. Suggested donations are $15.

Tomorrow, the festival continues in Cambridge at Gallery 263 (263 Pearl Street, Cambridge) with The Grace Lee Project, a fun and funny exploration of filmmaker Grace Lee’s intriguing project tracking down numerous women who share her name to see how their lives have shattered the stereotype of what society assumes a typical Korean woman is like. Tickets range from $5 to $9 if purchased in advance and $10 at the door.

Saturday, the final day of the festival, features a variety of film shorts at the Boston Public Library (700 Boylston Street, Copley Square, Boston) in the afternoon, as well as a pair of longer pieces in Cambridge at night. Boston Public Library’s free shorts program begins at 2pm, and it includes the United States’ The Tribe, which is about the Barbie doll and its link to the history of Jewish people; Spain and Senegal’s Binta and the Great Idea, an Academy Award-nominated short film focusing on seven-year-old Binta from Senegal and her fisherman father’s great idea on education; and China’s The Women’s Kingdom, a look at remote southwest China’s Mosuo women, one of the world’s few remaining matriarchal societies.

Two locations host the Cambridge offerings later in the day. The award-winning Mali-United States production This African Life will screen at Gallery 263 (263 Pearl Street, Cambridge) at 5pm. Tickets range from $5 to $9 if purchased in advance and $10 at the door. Through the firsthand experiences of female resident Sokona Keita, the film provides viewers insight into the struggles of women and children in a poor village in West Africa’s Mali.

The final film of the festival is Australia’s My Home — Your War, starting at 7:30pm and presented free at Harvard University’s Carpenter Center (B04, 24 Quincy Street, Cambridge). Iraq provides the backdrop as Layla Hassan, an ordinary woman from Baghdad, shares her eye-opening perspective on the Iraq War. A talk and brief discussion with Tahir Albakaa, Iraq’s former Minister of Higher Education and a current visiting scholar at Boston’s Suffolk University, will follow.

For more information on the International Women’s Day Film Festival and purchasing tickets, visit the official website. Interested individuals can also call one central phone number, 617-718-7990 x17, to get information about all of the films scheduled for the event.

Post from: The Boston Traveler